The new character, known as ‘Okazaemon’, has filled netizens with a mixture of horror and delight, and photographs of the mascot soon started trending online, accompanied by articles in major newspapers.

Okazaemon certainly is an interesting choice as a mascot to promote a city, but it seems as though the local council might have struck gold with their ‘creepy-cute’ combo character…

Okazaemon: Both Creepy and Cute? New City Mascot For Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture

Okazaemon hands out leaflets for the Aichi Triennale at Okazaki Castle.

A new mascot was chosen for Okazaki (Aichi prefecture) on April 1st as part of efforts to promote the city’s arts and culture. The new mascot, referred to as ‘yuru-kyara’ in Japanese, is called ‘Okazaemon’ and will be used as part of the PR for the upcoming Aichi Triennale 2013, scheduled to be held in Okazaki from August 10th to October 27th.

Okazaemon was created by the contemporary artists Sai and Koheita, both originally from nearby Nisshin, who entered the character as an exhibition in last year’s art festival. Okazaemon’s face resembles the character 岡 (oka), whilst the character 崎 (zaki) appears on his chest; the two characters together spell out the city’s name in Japanese. Okazaemon’s surreal image has lead to him becoming a trending topic online. The city’s mayor, Yasuhiro Uchida, described Okazaemon as Okazaki’s Minister for Arts Promotion, even going so far as to present him with a formal letter of appointment at Okazaki Castle as people who had gathered for cherry blossom viewing there looked on. As Okazaemon walked around the grounds handing out leaflets for the arts festival, the general consensus seemed to be that “he freaks me out, but somehow he’s also really cute.”

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Ruaraidh

What is it about the Japanese people and mascots? It’s totally infantile.

bluesummers

I think you mean totally FRIKKIN AWESOME!

thetemple

What do you mean. The West does it too. We have our mascots in sports and mascots for brands/companies too.

How is the mascot any more different other than it being ugly and horrible.

http://www.facebook.com/deejaytaufiq Mohamad Taufiq Morshidi

But does America have mascots for cities and online websites?

I mean, the only American website that does mascots (that i can think of) is Reddit.

Ruaraidh

Have you been to Japan? I seems like every single company out there has its own bizarre anime mascot. Also I’m not American, over here the mascot thing in sport isn’t really done, and only some children’s food products have mascots.

PixelPulse

Its more of logo + slogans then mascots in America, like Nike’s check sign or Mcdonalds giant M. None of them really have actual designed mascots outfits that people dress up in except for a very few that are aimed at kids.

Lulu

So…in Japan, do the sport teams try to kidnap or kick their rival team’s mascot?

tonkotsu

cultural differences, yea, they exist.

hun

Stick with pikachu and godzilla..

Flora

For once, Japanese commenters manage to make me laugh! ^-^

But seriously, that thing is pretty…..”interesting”.

Lulu

I think it’s cute as long as we are separated by a computer monitor, but much like a swarm of colourful beetles, I would scream if I see that in real life.